Posts tagged ‘dessert’

Who else hates New Year’s Eve? Anyone? I never could figure out what I was supposed to be doing on this, the most Amateur of Amateur Nights. Times Square was never an option, dinner out was always an overpriced snooze, and staying at home to cook a romantic meal just resulted in overwhelming levels of drunkenness as I tried one mixed drink experiment after another. Bad news all around.

So we started hunkering down at our friend Bryan’s house in Boston six years ago and it’s worked out incredibly well. It’s such a great compromise: All I have to do is cook lots of food, I don’t have to drive anywhere, and the party just happens around me with a rotating, crazy, always amusing cast of regular characters. After the first year’s ad hoc affair where I cooked a few random appetizers and munchies, we started assigning ethnic themes to the party food. As the crowds grew from seven to now more than 70 people, we of course couldn’t leave well enough alone, and the tradition got a little more elaborate every time.

In 2005, Bryan decided we should attempt paella, despite having way-too-small skillets incapable of holding enough rice to feed 20 people. (A nor’easter at the last minute left us with a lot of leftovers anyway.) In 2006, the Chinese Year of the Pig—Bryan’s favorite animal—gave us inspiration for a few Asian courses. In 2007, Bryan and his boyfriend LeeMichael’s gut-renovation condo in the South End necessitated a few trips to IKEA, so we hosted a Swedish-themed party influenced by the frugal retailer. Last year, in honor of Bryan and LeeMichael’s upcoming wedding, we celebrated the food of the Netherlands, the first country to legalize gay marriage.

Even before the first Dutch oliebollen and oudejaarspot were set on the table in 2008, I made an executive decision to take a year off from obscure culinary challenges. 2009 would be simple and delicious: an Italian feast. Having an entire year to prepare and a massive library of recipes from which to choose, I couldn’t resist going a little nuts (so much for simplicity) and make as much as I could from scratch—breads, pastas, sauces, ricotta. Had I thought of it earlier, I would have even tried homemade mozzarella for the first time.
>> Read on to see the full menu of Italian specialties >>

I know Danielle will disagree with me on this point because she hates to bake, but one of my big pet peeves is the general population’s reliance on boxed cake, brownie, and cookie mixes. I just don’t see why people settle for these and why the prevailing school of thought is that it’s so much harder to pull together a dessert from scratch.

So to disprove the haters, I decided to do a head-to-head test of my favorite homemade brownie recipe (a very easy one; no chopping chocolate involved) and what I consider to be a decent-tasting boxed mix, Cherrybrook Kitchen’s Fudge Brownie Mix with Chocolate Chips.

First up, the Cherrybrook Kitchen box, in addition to the mix, called for:

• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 3/4 cup cold water
• 2 tsp vegetable oil

It took me 2 minutes to melt the butter – this would have been quicker and easier if I had known exactly how many tablespoons of butter melted down to 1/3 cup, but I had to keep chunking butter and melting in the microwave until I got the right amount (it’s about 5 tbsp, for future reference).

It took another 5 minutes to stir all the ingredients together, and another 5 minutes for the oven to heat up to 350 degrees. Although the package said it would take 16-18 minutes to get a cakey brownie, it took 20 minutes with the homemade brownies baking alongside.
Total time: 32 minutes

Next, the homemade brownies, adapted from the Best Cocoa Brownies recipe in Bittersweet by Alice Medrich.

• 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cold large eggs
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

I made my ad hoc double boiler by bringing a small pan of water up to a simmer (5 minutes) and put the butter, sugar, cocoa powder, and salt in a heatproof bowl while the water was heating up. I placed the bowl over the simmering water and stirred the mixture occasionally for another 5 minutes until the butter was melted and the mixture became warm and shiny but still a little granular. When I wasn’t stirring the cocoa mixture, I measured out the flour and vanilla extract, and cracked the eggs into a cup.

When I took the mixture off the heat, I stirred in the vanilla and then the eggs one at a time until it looked shiny and well-blended. Finally, I added the flour and beat well for about 30 seconds until it was all incorporated.

All in all, to get the ingredients together and into the pan took 13 minutes (during which time the oven can preheat to 350 degrees, so no extra time tacked on for that), and 23 minutes to bake.
Total time: 36 minutes

Note that for both recipes, I used a greased and floured 9-inch square glass pan and did the toothpick test, removing the brownies from the oven when a toothpick inserted into the center of the pan came out with moist cakey chunks on it.

Final verdict:
In a shocking conclusion, the mix brownies were overwhelmingly embraced by all and even I will admit that they were actually very, very good. The homemade recipe was intensely fudge-like and smooth, almost like a flourless chocolate cake, while the boxed mix was cakier and really did benefit from the inclusion of chocolate chips. The general consensus was neck and neck, but some were turned off by the homemade brownie’s richness.

After a few days (hey, I’ve been testing them on various friends and co-workers!), the homemade brownies started to get a little stale, but creepily enough, the boxed mix still tasted fresh. I don’t know if this is a pro or a con, to be honest.

I’ll definitely continue to make the homemade recipe if I need a base for a brownie sundae or am craving the fudgy texture over cakey, and being me, I’ll also try out a few more homemade brownie recipes for the hell of it. However, if you can’t abide baking (ahem, Danielle), it’s probably worth it to find a smaller purveyor’s boxed mix. You won’t save that much time by doing so, but you won’t lose that much in taste either.

I need a chocolate dessert recipe that’s easy to make and is easily transportable on the subway. Give me something good!

When it comes to easier-than-expected desserts that are seemingly fail-proof, I have to turn to my favorite hipster baking geniuses, Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito of Baked. (Seriously. Buy their cookbook. I have yet to find a bad recipe in there.) Here’s an adapted version of a recipe I served to great acclaim this past December, although I think it works for the non-holiday seasons too.

Chocolate-Mint Thumbprints
Makes 4 dozen

For the cookies:
• 2 oz. chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate (I use the Valrhona chunks but if pressed, you could chop up a good-quality chocolate bar
• 2 oz. chopped mint chocolate (the Baked guys actually recommend Andes candies for this!)
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 2 sticks softened unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp. brown sugar
• 2 large egg yolks
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• Sugar in the Raw, for rolling

For the ganache filling:

• 3 oz. chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
• 3 tbsp. heavy cream
• 1/2 tsp. mint extract

Melt the two chocolates in the microwave until just about melted, stopping to stir every 30 seconds (the chocolate will retain its shape until touched, so stirring is crucial to see where you are in the melting process). Whisk until smooth, then let cool while you whisk together the flour, cocoa and salt in a separate medium bowl.

Using a Mixmaster or electric mixer, beat the butter until light and fluffy, then add the regular and brown sugars and beat for about 2 minutes more until well-incorporated and extremely fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks and vanilla. Add half the dry ingredients, stir to combine, and then add the other half, stirring until smooth. Turn the dough out onto a sheet of plastic wrap, pat into a disk, seal it up and refrigerate for an hour or until fully chilled.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Pour your raw sugar into a shallow bowl. Roll up tablespoonfuls of the dough into balls and dredge in the sugar, then move to the baking sheets. Using your thumb, smush the balls slightly so there’s an indentation in each (this is where you’ll put your choco-mint ganache filling), and bake for 10 minutes. Check the cookies and make sure your indentations haven’t disappeared as the cookie bakes and puffs; you’ll probably have to re-smush them again. Then bake for 5 more minutes and transfer the cookies to cooling racks until they come down to room temperature.

Transfer the cookies back to the cooled baking sheets (cram them in; it’s ok if they touch but not overlap). Heat the cream in the microwave about 30 seconds or until it boils – it won’t take long. Pour the cream over the remaining 3 oz. of chopped chocolate and let stand about a minute until the chocolate has melted, then whisk until smooth. If there are still chocolate chunks, microwave in 5-second intervals, stirring between each, until they melt.

Stir in the mint extract and fill each of the thumbprint indentations, licking any extra ganache out of the bowl – you’re allowed. Place the baking sheets in the fridge for a half hour to chill and set the filling, then serve to your appreciative audience.

Ask Casey any food-related queries (or challenge me to a Rock Band sing-off) at caseyATgoodfoodstoriesDOTcom.

What if I told you that in only 20 minutes (including assembly of ingredients), you can have a bowl of puckery, smooth, rich, perfect lemon curd? And that you can have it without separating egg whites and yolks or owning a double boiler?

You will, however, need a whisk, a stainless-steel bowl, and a pot into which your bowl can rest. Make sure there’s enough room between the bottom of the bowl and the bottom of the pot, because you won’t want the simmering water in your pot to touch the bowl. This will scorch your curd and scramble the eggs, and it’s not very tasty-looking when that happens.

OK, fill up your pot with about an inch of water and bring it to a healthy simmer while you dump the following into your stainless-steel bowl:

• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup lemon juice (from 4-5 lemons; please don’t use bottled juice!)
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Whisk continuously for 12-15 minutes. Think of it as a chance to work your upper arms. It will be sloshy at first as the butter melts and the sugar dissolves. The liquid will continue to be sloshy – you will wonder if you’re doing something wrong, and by minute seven you’ll be frustrated and cursing me.

But watch! By minute eight it will shift from translucent to opaque and bubbles will remain at the edges of the mixture, and by minute ten it will start to thicken and you’ll see the trails of your whisk as it tugs its way around the bowl. By minute thirteen the curd should be fully thickened and you can remove the bowl from the heat. Watch the following video so you’ll know what to look for:

Pour your curd into a jar – you will have about 12 oz. or 1 1/2 cups. The curd will continue to firm up as it cools but I have been known to eat it warm, like a pudding. No shame there.

This recipe is also useful for other citrus, should you want to make a curd trio or a tart filling. I would cut the amount of sugar by half if you’re using a sweeter citrus fruit, like a navel or blood orange, but keep as is for limes or grapefruit.